Fit for Freelance Testimonial: Beating Burnout and Losing Weight

Reggie: This is Lindsay here. And today we're talking about her experience with the Guilt-free Gameplan one-on-one coaching, the 14-week plan. She got some great results and we had a lot of fun.

Who do you serve? What kind of work do you do?

I'm the founder of Labs. It's product-market fit for pre-seed startups. So in the tech startup world, the average software project goes 3X over scope. So that's a lot of money to spend.

So whenever someone is like, "Ooh, I have an app idea. I need to go find software developers," I try to intercept them before they do that because there is just so much more they can do to prove traction, get customers and drive revenue before ever having to develop software. 

So that's what Labs is. It's a six-month experience with a 12-week course, open office hours and a community aspect.

Fit for Freelance testimonial: Why did you sign up for the Guilt-free Gameplan?

Last year was a big year for Labs. I had moved all of the content from the structure of six workshops into chapters and lessons. It was a really, really big project. And I found myself in October totally burnt out. Also, some family life experiences. I lost my grandmother. I was exhausted.

And I recalled a friend of mine, Lidia, who talks a lot about burnout and says you can't rebuild and take on the same life you had that led you to feeling that exhausted.

I knew I wanted to get to a place to rebuild where choices about my health and fitness, stability, good habits, things that I needed to do in that realm, I prioritized on the same ground as equally important as anything that I could do at my desk for my business.

So that was my driving motivation. And you and I have inadvertently been following each other on Instagram for a long time, and I checked out everything you were talking about. It really resonated, particularly your attention to other business owners. And I knew I didn't want just to find any trainer that is just going to give me a workout and check in on whether I did the workout or not. There were a lot of elements around mindset that were exciting for me.

Reggie:
Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for joining and signing up for that. I appreciate it. And that is something that can catch people off guard if they sign up on a whim is, they are expecting some kind of cookie cutter program and just a quick check in, but we actually go really far and in depth into your goals with the Guilt-free Gameplan, and we discover values and we identify ownership and compassion and being adaptive. And then you, the client, you get to pick one too, and yours was presence. What did that mean to you? Where did that come from? How did that help you reach your goals?

Lindsay:
I do want to just say one thing to our audience, though. Before they get upset and think, "Oh, this isn't all fitness and training,"

"I did go down two jean sizes. But the work wasn't focused on that, which is the crazy thing."

Guilt-free Gameplan Success: Supporting your values and goals

So yes, presence was one of the things that was important to me. Like I said, I've gone through a lot of different, intense, personal and professional life experiences. And I had understood for a while that I was so focused on where I wanted to go, I wasn't appreciating what I had and what I had accomplished in my life being self-employed for eight years, being a homeowner, all these things that are really awesome that didn't seem to be factoring into how I felt about myself.

What mistakes and challenges were you having with your health goals?

Health and fitness goals used to come from a negative place. I grew up overweight. I was insecure about my body throughout my 20s, and the obsession I put into my looks and my eating was unhealthy. I learned early on in my business that I needed to get over that because I needed that energy to focus on what I was trying to accomplish professionally.

I mean, every time I was relying on an old way of thinking. Every time I would get upset with the way that I looked or how I felt. I mean, when I came to you, I was like, I feel old. I'm achy. I can't move my body. And I'm 38, so some of it comes with age. But I've had three grandparents live to their 90s, so I have a long time to feel old.

So yeah, I think every time I did go back to the gym or find a new workout plan to follow, it was always coming from a negative place. It didn't really stick. I couldn't hold myself accountable to it. And I don't think I would've realized on my own that it was the mindset that was keeping me from doing it well. And so, yeah, I think I realized that I needed help if I wanted to do it right and do it in a healthy way.

[I have a friend who says she] wants to eat more healthy and she'll make commitments. A lot of people do this. You turn to a friend and say let's be workout buddies, but then one person is like, I'm working out all the time and the other person is not doing it.

And I said to her, I said, I think it is a mindset thing. Because she's like, I don't know what I'm doing it for. Am I doing it for me? And I was like, maybe you're not doing it for you in this moment, but you're doing it for you tomorrow, for you in the future. And I have definitely evangelized the mindset tools that you've shared with me to my own founders and they have definitely seen results. And I think that's the really awesome part, for sure.

Reggie:
Thanks. Appreciate that. That's a good story. I love it. And that's what my next question is. What elements of the Guilt-free Framework made a difference in the progress towards your goals? And it sounds like you're really enjoying the setup.

Click here to learn more about the Guilt-Free Gameplan

We do vision and focus so you learn more about why you are doing what you're doing, and if it's aligned with what you really want to do in terms of changing your health habits. Because a lot of people will just start up and find something online, do all or nothing plans and it doesn't really suit what they want for themselves. And they quit and they feel bad and guilty and mentally weak. It's a whole thing. And so I'm glad you had a good experience with that. And you're telling people about it, that's awesome. We're going to tell more people too.

Any other elements of the Guilt-free Framework really stand out?

Fit for Freelance testimonial: What made the difference for your progress?

One thing that you do really well is you have a toolbox and then you help us figure out how to adapt that tool to our style.

So for example, plenty of people try to have a gratitude practice and they write three things they're grateful for in the morning or three grateful things at night or whatever. And I said to you that I wasn't going to do three at night. I just pass out at night and journaling and taking that moment wasn't part of my routine, and it was unlikely to be part of my routine.

And so you noticed that I was keeping track of my practice schedule in a notebook and you were like, "Okay, well every time you open that notebook, just write something you're grateful for."

And that transformed how I felt about the gratitude practice for sure because I'm carrying this notebook around and every time I see it across the room, I'm like, "I'm grateful, I'm grateful." And then I'm like, "What am I grateful for? I need to go write down what I'm grateful for." And I think that helped me be extremely present, especially during the hard time.

We had [COVID-19] Omicron going on. I was cleaning out my grandmother's apartment after she passed away. So it was just to appreciate the present moment and the way that Anything else you think people should know about the Guilt-free Gameplan or your experience with it you are able to take these tools and adapt them to what's realistic for us, what's actually going to work for us.

Reggie:
Love it, love it. Glad to help. And you see how those values come together with compassion and being adaptive. And then the realistic focus, it all comes together really nicely. Fantastic.

Lindsay:
I also thought it was funny, I came to you and I was like, "I need to be walking 8,000 steps a day. But if I don't make an effort, I'm at 4,000 or 5,000." And I think on my own, I would've just told myself one Monday morning, this is the week I'm going to walk 8,000 or 9,000 steps a day and just get it done. And it wouldn't happen. I wouldn't stick with it. No rhyme or reason, I don't know.

And then the first week, you were like, "Just get 5,500 steps a day." I was like, "Okay, that seems really weak." And I blew it out of the water, but you know what?

Achieving small goals and feeling good about it is like putting gas in your tank to tackle bigger goals.

How did you feel using the Guilt-free Framework? Was it simple and clear?

I think it's good to mention, just to bring up again that you have these tools and this framework, and I came to you with a different ask because instead of having a clear goal like I want to dead lift 200 pounds again, or I want to fit into my size 31 jeans, or I want to launch this podcast, I was like, I don't want to feel old. And I want to feel like I have some energy.

And it was very loosely defined, and we both agreed that there would probably be some hard things about that, but we worked on that journey together and I got the results I wanted. I feel really stinking good right now. So that's awesome.

So I think, again, and emphasizing that adaptability as one of your values that you share with us and that we have to come to own as well, I really saw... Helping me to adapt the program each week, based on what I was experiencing. We went through the holidays and New Years and everything. That was super, super helpful just to slowly build up this capacity. And some things, I saw the results right away, like easy way and 5,500 steps a day. Awesome.

The gratitude thing was in three days, I'm just looking at this notebook all the time being like, what am I grateful for, what am I grateful for, and listing those things out. And I think there, it took some fine tuning with my eating and fine tuning with my exercise. But it all really came together and it's just a reminder slow and steady wins the race. Because someone could have promised me all of this in four weeks and I would've crashed and burned. And also, you went out of your way to create that burnout calculator so we could measure my recovery from burnout over the 14 weeks, and I thought that was really awesome.

Click here to get the Burnout Assessment Test

Reggie:
Yeah. I was glad to do that. I'm looking forward to making that more of a fixture in the business too, because it's such a valuable tool to help you assess some of the elements of stress and feeling overwhelmed that can sabotage all your goals in your health and your business.

Lindsay:
Well, a friend had said to me, maybe a couple weeks before I signed up to work with you, she said, "You can't really make decisions about your business when you're burnt out. You can't make those decisions because if you're really burnt out, your whole body hurts when you have to think about your work, if it's that's really what's going on." And yeah, so it was like I just had to focus on what was going to make me feel better and let go of controlling all of the outcomes.

Reggie:
Yeah. So it sounds like you had a really good recovery from burnout, in part because of the Guilt-free Gameplan, but mostly because of your own ability to adapt and recognize what you needed for yourself.

Watch Lindsay's Burnout Recovery Case Study video

Lindsay:
Yeah. I think definitely it was a great reminder of how quickly I put new lessons into action. So that was one of the accomplishments or recognition that I gave myself at the end of our work together was like, "Hey, I really put these things into work." You told me to inspect my food diaries for what was high in carbs, and I went and did it right away and updated it. And then I did it again on my own, and that's awesome. And then also just being super realistic and reasonable. That's the thing is reasonable. I think we have this go big, go home culture, and I hate it. I want to go big and go home. Or I want to tell you that if you go big, you'll probably go home, if you're not careful. So realistic and reasonable goals and action steps is what's really going to move the needle long term.

Reggie:
That's perfect. I will update my info page, realistic and reasonable action steps to help you reach your goals.

Lindsay:
I don't know if it sells. That's my hard thing, as a coach too, if I talk to tech startup founders and I'm like, "I want you to go big. I want you to go acquire all the users and build the most amazing technology, but 90% of startups fail. So I want you to go medium, not so big." But that doesn't sell on Instagram. Follow me, I'll teach you how to go medium.

Reggie:
It's an ongoing game, trying to get people to realize that you have a process that'll help them for sure.

Lindsay:

"When you sit and idolize extreme, obsessive type of behavior that 'go big' inspires, you're just setting yourself up for failure over and over again because it's not natural to be that obsessed. You have a life."

You have other things going on. I recognize that if I was stressed and doing a lot of work with my business, and this in my early days, that obsessing over my weight was going to take energy away from that. And you only have so much energy to make decisions and to focus and to improve yourself. And so you've got to be conscious of those levels and how you manage them.

Reggie:
Deep. That's quotable. That's huge. It's like, I feel so proud of you. You get it. You understand what I'm talking about. So that's good. Yes. I'm so excited.

Lindsay:
I mean, this is the thing that I understood, the energy store that you have for willpower, which you need to create new habits to wear your retainer, to stop smoking cigarettes, to drink less, whatever, walk more, whatever it is, it's the same energy store that you use to make decisions.

So I always relate that to people. I'm like, "Okay, Obama smoked cigarettes the eight years that he was president and that sucks, but he's making decisions all day, every day. He doesn't have the energy to change a significant habit." So when you are thinking about like, "Man, I don't have a workout routine," and for me, I hadn't really had a steady workout routine in two years. Managing my business and building a workout routine, I wasn't going to be able to go zero to 100 in one week. It needed to be a lot, lot slower.

Reggie:
Yeah, that realistic focus is-

Lindsay:
Reasonable.

Reggie:
Yeah, reasonable. Exactly.

Lindsay's Fit for Freelance Testimonial: Reasonable and realistic.

Reggie:
And that's something I love about the Guilt-free Gameplan is it's not just something you tack on with your health, and everything else you're doing is already happening and then you add an extra responsibility. One of the top three things that make it different is that it's letting your health support your life because you're always making health choices or choices that will affect your health and your energy and your ability to be present in your business with your activity levels and your eating habits. So that was a key, and I was really glad that you could come up with that understanding and make it fit in for you. You covered that. That was a question I had here. I

Lindsay:
I mean, we should tell everyone what the funniest one of my habits was making sure that I put on workout clothes first thing in the morning so that I had more of a chance of feeling like I would work out more.

Reggie:
Right.

Lindsay:

It's adapting to you, setting reasonable goals, winning and just getting it to fall into your life.

Reggie:
Perfect. Yeah. I was always enjoying when you would say like, "Yeah, such a simple goal, but it makes everything else easier into like next steps or throughout your day." So that's awesome. If someone's thinking about signing up for their own Guilt-free Gameplan, what would you say to them if they're hesitant? If they're on the fence and they're wondering should I do it, is this for me, what would you tell them?

Fit for Freelance testimonial: What would you tell a friend thinking about signing up?

Lindsay:
If someone is like, and it's the same with my program, Labs, it's like, what's the cost of you trying to do this by yourself for three, four months? Are you going to do it? That's the first thing, are you going to do it without the external accountability? That's the first question to ask anyone. Because I read, there's Daniel Pink. He has a whole book on intrinsic motivation. I read that. It didn't change my ability to follow through without accountability. So think through all the times that you've been successful, and was it totally on your own? Were you totally self-managed? Or is it because you had a team or a coach around you?

I mean, athletes have coaches. Business owners should have coaches. Everyone should have coaches. Everyone, if you want to be a better person, you need a coach. And so I mean, that's the first thing is, what's the cost to you for another three to four months to do it on your own and probably do it poorly to still feel the same way? I knew in November, I didn't want to feel the way I felt anymore and it had to change.

The only way I was going to be successful is if I had the help of someone holding me accountable and helping to adapt the plan so that I don't rethink it too many times on my own.

Reggie:
That's a big one, actually. That they realize that they've tried a bunch of the things and it doesn't work out. And they start and then they stop. It's almost like a New Year's resolution several times a year. And so they give up and then they don't feel good about it, and then they're discouraged for other changes. And it seeps into other areas of their life, where the efficacy is down, so you don't know if you can do other things that you're intending to do in terms of your business or impacting your community or stuff like that. And it creates a discouraging space.

So giving people a game plan to change it and empower something that's simple, that's simple. It's simple, but not easy. And it's fundamental, like you have to eat every day or most days. So once you start to practice those things, then you realize like, "Oh, I can do this, then what else can I do?"

That's why I came up with the tagline building adaptive business leaders through compassionate health coaching, because the process of health coaching is the same thing, the same kind of process that you would apply to any of your other goals, especially with your business as a freelancer or entrepreneur. So yeah.

Lindsay:
For sure. 100%, all of that is true.

Reggie:
Thanks. And then something else I like to do is, because Fit for Freelance, we like to build adaptive business leaders, and people who are building communities and legacy and thinking bigger than themselves. A lot of times people will think like, "Okay, this is what my family needs, or this is what the people around me need," and they can get away from what they need on their own. 

However, I always like to ask people at the end of these interviews about their legacy and what they hope. So if people are coming to your funeral or your birthday celebration, doesn't have to be so end of life stuff, but what are you hoping that they're saying about you and your impact, your legacy?

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Fit for Freelance testimonial: How do you want to be remembered?

I've been obsessed with designing technology for people my entire life and my entire career. So since 2002, so it's pretty long. And I want technology that helps support people, not make them change their lives. And so my vision is to make all of our lives easier so that we can design ourselves and the human experience into the future.

So I want to be known for not only with Labs, helping non-technical founders who are solving real problems using technology, not just helping them reach more people, but also being to reach the masses with the message of how we can be more conscious with the way that we use technology in our lives and the trajectory that it is taking us. So that's what I want to be known for.

Anything else you think people should know about the Guilt-free Gameplan or your experience with it?

I feel really, really good and just like I put the workout clothes on in the morning and the next thing you know, I like pop on just a five-minute Peloton workout stretching my shoulders or something in a yoga class. But those little things make a difference when my starting point was like, "Oh, I'm feeling achy and old and creaky." So just the big changes in my habits and what I think is important to take care of day to day brings a lot more calmness to my work with my founders and my peers.

No. I think it's amazing. I told you, I tell everyone all these things improving, just tracking your accomplishments, like great. It feels amazing. And I think I probably would read a lot about gratitude, and manifestation, visualization and all these things and maybe just gloss over it. But as someone said to me, they're like, "This is some 101, 102 work that is super, super foundational. And in until you do it with Reggie's help, you are not going to feel the actual outcomes that you can actually achieve using these tools."

Lindsay:
I think I just want to tell everyone that one of my affirmations is to always laugh about it. So that's why Reggie and I are ridiculously smiling because I do promise to always laugh about it because building a business is hard. Taking care of yourself is hard. Life is hard. And we need to find the funny in how difficult it is to make behavior change to be our better selves.

Reggie:
There you go. There you have it. Couldn't have ended it better myself. So thanks for watching, and as always, keep practicing.

Can you relate to Lindsay's story?

Tired of feeling burnt out, old, and achy? Hate unrealistic plans rooted in the idea that you're not good enough? Looking to be your best as you give back to your community?

If you hate getting stuck, feeling like you're not good enough from typical online weight loss plans, the Guilt-free Gameplan is the compassionate starting point for a custom, guided health habits plan. You pick the goals based on what you want, and nothing you don't, so you take confident ownership of your path to freedom and fitness.

Let's get you the energy and accountability you need to be great at what you love

Without all of the hardcore weight loss plans and all or nothing diets. Then you don't even have to focus on losing weight; you'll actually just feel more energized and confident. Then the weight loss will come after that. if you had weight to lose, right? If you make that healthy shift and you are feeling that new energy, you're going to see your body change to reflect that

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